


Not That Glamorous

by complex_andhera



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Food Service, Childhood Friends, Depression, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 05:06:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2179023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complex_andhera/pseuds/complex_andhera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yamaguchi's life is kind of a mess. He has no self-confidence, no friends, he can't pick a major, and his physics problem set is due tomorrow (surprise: he hasn't started yet). And it only gets messier when he walks into the campus McDonalds late one Thursday night, intent only on getting some chicken nuggets and maybe a cute Hello Kitty toy, and he sees a old face that he hasn't seen in more than seven years-one Tsukishima Kei. Will they be able to pick up from where they left off in elementary school? Or will the tumultuous atmosphere of college finally rip them both apart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not That Glamorous

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about as a combination of my terrible first year of college (it wasn't entirely terrible.there were just... terrible parts...) and my first time playing Portal! (hint: I was not so great at it). 
> 
> This idea has been on my mind for a long time. It was either food service or coffee shop au, and in the end I just fell in love with the idea of Tsukishima, bored out of his mind working at McDonalds, and Yamaguchi coming in there one day to get a Happy Meal and then slowly falling in love with him. 
> 
> So here it is! Thank you so much for reading. Comments are always appreciated!

_Stop the world, cause I wanna_  
 _Get off, with you_

Yamaguchi closed his eyes and rubbed on the tender skin of his eyelids. He noted that his knuckles felt ugly, as dry skin and calloused fingers came in contact with the outside of his tired eye lids, and he exhaled wearily and shut his laptop off to distract himself from that fact. When he finally looked up tiredly from the brightly glowing screen, he couldn't see much in front of him. The blinds were shut, the curtains drawn, and his dorm room had been enclosed in dark was for the last five hours straight.

"It's good thing I don't have a roommate for my first year," Yamaguchi thought to himself, because when he finally crawled out from under the fluffy, gray comforter covering his bed (brushing off a medley of different white crumbs and frowning when his fingers landed on a few questionably colored stains scattered along his sheets) and felt his way to the light switch through the darkness, he sheepishly glanced around at the mess around him and was suddenly glad that there was no one to judge the Chinese take out boxes littering his floor and dirty laundry piling up at the very back corner of his room, right by his bed, waiting patiently (but in vain) to be folded.

"Geez, I really have to get my shit together," he muttered to himself, picking up random crumpled papers and stuffing them into the trash can.

He ruffled his hair frustratedly and looked to the digital alarm clock on his desk, the blue digits glaring brightly as if to reprimand him-shit, it's already 2:00 AM, how long have I been playing that game?-and he made a mental note to that Kenma for lending to him later. The quiet boy was his only friend in his Forensic Chemistry class, and he's have to give his game back when he sees him next Tuesday.  
Yamaguchi groaned, suddenly remembering the half-completed problem set that's been sitting on his desk since Monday. It's now what...Thursday? Shit. His physics professor is going to give him hell about this tomorrow, he should have been soon with this stupid thing, like, yesterday.

Gah he thinks to himself as he grabs his pencil bag and clumsily stuff it, along with his binder and a couple of errant pieces of notebook paper, into his backpack, College is supposed to be filled with stupid decisions, but playing Portal until 2 am is much lamer than I expected..

He shuts the door and heads out to the library, hoping to score a table all to himself in the quiet section-no way is he ever trying to get anything productive done in his room again-when suddenly his stomach growls.

Loudly.

Like so loudly that some people in the hall actually stop what they’re doing and turn to look at him He's so embarrassed, and for a person who can be pretty shameless and irresponsible at times, he still kind of cares about what other people think, y'know? He laughs nervously, little ehhehes that make the people on his floor look at him even weirder and go ahead with classifying him as the hall weirdo-of-the-year, and he almost sprints out of the hallway, jumps into the elevator, and decides that his impromptu study session can wait until he’s made a short stop at the campus McDonald’s.

* * *

Tsukishima sighed and took another drag from his cigarette. His break was going to end in fifteen minutes, and he was going to have to put his black McDonalds hat and oil stained apron back on and take his place yet again behind the cash register for four more hours. Needless to say, he wasn't exactly looking forward to it. He inhaled the last bit of smoke and slowly exhaled a small puff, not enjoying the lingering flavor of menthol but grateful nonetheless for the temporary calming of his nerves. In a few more hours, his hands were going to be shaking and he would drop quarters and curse before having to drop down and pick up all of the damned coins individually, but for the moment he was okay, and soon he could look forward to crashing on his unmade, only slightly crumb ridden twin bed and passing out for the next eight hours.

Thank god he didn't have any classes tomorrow.

Working the graveyard shift at the 24 hour campus McDonald’s wasn’t exactly the best thing to do right before any of the strenuous classes that made up his heavy pre-medical course load.

Granted, Tsukishima had always had some kind of part time job- be it working as a waiter, in fast food, or at a convenience store-since his junior year of high school. There was no way he was going to be able to afford medical school if all he did was sit on his ass and study for hours like most of his peers, whose parents were generously paying their entire way through medical school. And although he would have preferred (and even enjoyed) playing on the college volleyball team like some of his insufferable high school classmates, in all honestly he just wouldn't have the time for it. And something had been missing from his life-at least missing from his volleyball-ever since Akiteru had left home for a small, private college almost six years ago.

Everything felt a little bit hollow, like he was just completing the motions because he had too, and along with the endless silence that Akiteru had left in the house between Tsukishima and parents, and well, it's not really surprising that he spent the next few years listening to weird music alone in his room instead of outside, late at night, practicing hard in order to improve his spikes.

There wasn't anyone to toss to him anymore, he mused as he crushed the cigarette underneath his sneaker and zipped up his black hoodie, and there was no point in thinking about the past any longer.

When Tsukishima went back inside, the lights were flickering sporadically and the ugly tiled floor was in desperate need of mopping. He sighed and made his way behind the counter. It wasn't too crowded on a Thursday night, he could man the counter and mop at the same time.

Especially if it meant being able to avoid the lovey-dovey graduate students manning the fries station.

Sugawara and Daichi had been working at the on campus McDonalds much longer than he had been, and they did what Tsukishima considered gross couple-y things like taking their breaks together and feeding each other fries and swiping each other's face with vanilla soft serve. Blech. Just the thought of Suga and Daichi making puppy eyes at each other for the next four hours made him want to cause an unfortunate accident involving a whole lot of cooking oil.

He kneeled down and opened the cabinet under the counter with the mop head in it, ignoring the "Hey, Tsukishima," that the friendlier of the two grad students, Suga, tossed over his shoulder. He pushed through the assortment of bottles and cleaning supplies until he found the stringy mophead he was looking for. Success. Maybe the rest of the night would go smoothly and his nerves wouldn't completely eat him up and he could just serve more greasy food in relative silence.

He snorts. "Dream big," he thinks to himself, and he's right because in the next minute, as he's upon slowly standing up from his knees, he hears a soft, almost inaudible voice asking "Um, hello? Is anybody there?"

And immediate smacks his head on the counter.

Hard.

Like almost to the extent that he can hear the small fragments of his skull shattering into a few hundred pieces. And he would have almost fallen over and collapsed then and there, goodbye cruel world, thanks for nothing, if not for a glimpse of freckles.

And not just a few freckles, but heaps of them, scattered of the surprisingly delicate bridge of the nose, and paling slightly at the arch of a long neck. Fuck. He would pull himself up and act composed, and not like his brain was splintering into a thousand pieces, just for those freckles. And perhaps even for the person attached to them, who by this point looks absolutely terrified, eyes widened almost comically and reaching out to him in panic.

“A-are you o-okay??” the freckled, somewhat cute menace asks him, and Tsukishima has to bite back some sort of sarcastic reply as he stands and rubs his temples.

“Tch...don’t worry about it,” he replies, and when he’s finally standing Sugawara and Daichi finally pick their jaws up from the ground and stop asking if he’s okay.

“Welcome to McDonald’s, how may I help you?” he rattles off monotonously.

He takes in the rumpled appearance of the customer in front of him, who looks no different than most of the frazzled college students coming in here in the middle of the night with his wrinkly black hoodie, messy brown hair, and terrible dark circles marred only by faint freckles scattered on his nose and cheeks. Looks just like any other all-nighter he thinks to himself, but then he hears something funny.

“Um, can I have a happy meal, please?” Yamaguchi asks tentatively, pulling on the frayed ends of his hoodie sleeve.

Something seems to be bothering him, he doesn’t meet Tsukishima’s eyes, but maybe he just feels sorry for inadvertently causing Tsukishima to make a fool out of himself? He tries not to think about it.

“What.” Tsukishima is so confused, is he supposed to believe that this beanpole, whose only a few inches shorter than him, wants to eat 4 chicken nuggets, apples, and a small carton of milk?

Yamaguchi colors at his statement, and Sugawara has to prod him in the back, hard, for him to actually be able to answer. He gives Tsukishima a meaningful look and reluctantly, Tsukishima turns around and tries to behave more politely.

“What..toy would you like with that?” Nice save, Kei. He totally doesn’t look intimidated or anything.

Finally, Yamaguchi forgets to be self-conscious. He smiles brightly, and points excitedly to the plastic display adjacent to the counter.

His voice picks up and he becomes pretty exuberant as he rattles on,“Well, it’s pretty hard to pick between Hello Kitty and Hot Wheels, but right now that Hello Kitty keychain looks super cute, so could I have that one please?”

Tsukishima is frozen. He doesn’t even know what to say, which, for someone as snarky and sarcastic as he is, almost never happens. He’s confused about what to think, something between Pathetic and Fucking Cute comes to mind, so instead of opening his mouth and most probably embarrassing himself further, he just nods tensely pulls out a tray and rings up his order.

“You’re total is $2.50, what’s the name on the order?” he asks, almost pained. He opens the cash register mechanically, and is momentarily perturbed when Yamaguchi finally looks up at him and just smiles with a faraway look in his eyes.

“You forgot about me, Tsukki? Ah, I guess I was sort of pathetic in elementary school.” Yamaguchi answers and looks down bashfully.

“Y-yamaguchi?” he chokes.

Tadashi nods slowly. “Its nice...seeing you here. Again, I mean.”

Both of them look at each other awkwardly. Yamaguchi fidgets uncontrollably and Tsukishima rubs the back of his neck tiredly.

“What...are you even doing here?” he manages to say.

_This is so weird he thinks to himself._ He hasn’t seen Yamaguchi Tadashi since elementary school, when he was significantly shorter and with more pronounced freckles that frequently made him the target of bullying. (The messy hair and the self-conscious demeanor are the same). He remembers in fragments- he remembers pulling Yamaguchi away from bullies after calling them pathetic, he remembers Yamaguchi taking him to his house after school and carefully, almost reverentially placing a sparkly, pink Hello Kitty band-aid on his knee (not before thanking him profusely, bowing his head so much that Tsukishima also remembers telling him to Shut up, Tadashi, after smoothing over the bandage). He remembers holding hands, briefly, when walking to school later that week (and eventually for the rest of the year), he remembers Tadashi’s mom remarking Cute, you boys are so cute! and Akiteru ruffling his hair and then moving to ruffle Yamaguchi’s, and a familiar feeling of warmth spreads through his chest.

The warmth leaves his chest just as easily.

“You moved, right?” Tsukishima says before he can stop himself, and Yamaguchi’s smile falls briefly before he forces himself to pretend that he isn’t hurt by Tsukishima’s harsh tone.

“Ah, yes...after fifth grade.” Tsukishima tries to not look betrayed, he doesn’t even know why he cares so much because they were friends from ages ago. It should hardly affect him this much, but somehow he still feels a little anger seep out from a little place in his heart that he thought he had shut the door to long ago.

A line is building up behind Yamaguchi, and he looks so crestfallen that he hardly notices.

“Hey, dumbass, you gonna move or something?” a tall, third-year pushes past Yamaguchi roughly, and Tsukishima almost defends him until Yamaguchi just meekly nods and moves to the side to grab his tray where his now-cold Happy Meal waits for him.

“Wait…” Tsukishima calls out to him at the last minute. Yamaguchi perks up at the last minute, and yeah, Tsukishima definitely remembers that look, and Tsukishima sighs for what seems like the millionth time this night and pulls out a pen from his black apron and a napkin from the counter. He apologizes to the three guys standing behind Yamaguchi and, sticking his tongue in concentration, quickly writes his cell phone number down before he knows what he’s doing.

“Call me or something,” he says, trying to play it noncommittal (but still mostly freaking out on the inside). “Don’t just up and leave again, okay?”

Yamaguchi’s eyes soften and he nods vigorously. He no longer looks like a kicked puppy anymore (thankfully), and he grabs his Happy Meal and bounds of out the door, but not before throwing an excited “Thanks, Tsukki!” over his shoulder.

Tsukishima blushes, but waves back anyways.

It’s been a long since he’s heard that nickname.


End file.
